Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB vs Radeon RX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon RX 460 2GB, which has a clock frequency of 1090 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1750 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and uses a 14 nm design. It is made up of 896 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is 3% quicker than the Radeon RX 460 2GB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon RX 460 2GB		112000 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (3%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 460 2GB will be a lot (approximately 131%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB. (explain)

Radeon RX 460 2GB		61040 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34640 (131%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should be quite a bit (approximately 51%) better at AA than the Radeon RX 460 2GB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon RX 460 2GB		17440 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8960 (51%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.